Holland — I am writing you from the future. From a room on Sixth Street, at a small desk with a dim lamp. There are no salt stains on my loafers, despite having just walked through a snowstorm. My toes aren’t damp, my socks dry as a bone. No snow was tracked across the floor, no mess made.
Through a bank of windows, I watch the snow fall on clean sidewalks where groups of people walk calmly without slipping and without stomping. As soon as those frozen flakes from above touch down on planet earth, they disappear as if a spell has been cast over the brick itself. All night the snow falls, and all night the sidewalks remain the same.
Dry, clean, safe, and warm.
In the future (read as: Holland, Michigan) we have heated streets and heated sidewalks. No, it’s not magic, and it’s not luck that provides the smooth, clean brick all winter long. It’s a feat of ingenuity, foresight, stewardship, and charity.
The late 1980s were peak mall culture. During these years, malls were soaring at their highest altitude, attracting more people to food courts filled with fake plants and penny-filled fountains than they ever had before and ever have since. Of course, with the rise of the mall often came the demise of the downtown. It was during this era of the mall that Holland changed their future.
In order to avoid the fate of a destroyed downtown, Holland decided to make their downtown just as pleasant and just as walkable as any indoor mall, all year-round. Of course, ideas don’t just spring out of the ground. The idea for these futuristic heated streets and sidewalks came from Edgar Prince, noted industrialist and Holland native. Prince had seen how similar systems had worked in Europe and was confident they could do the same in Holland. With his idea, and his $250,000 donation, Holland created the largest snow-melt system in the U.S.
The system is ingenious. Using waste heat from power generation near downtown, the water is heated and pumped through more than 100 miles of tubing under the city. The tubes are just 3/4” in circumference and yet, they are able to melt 1” of snow per hour in 20 degree temperatures. Since the late 1980s, the snow-melt system has expanded to include more sidewalk and street and in the future could expand to include 400% more territory than it currently heats.
The heated sidewalks are surreal. You see the snow coming down, and it might be coming down hard, but it just sort of disappears. It amasses on the grass between the sidewalk and the street, but the walkway remains clean. What exactly is going on doesn’t really compute. The snow just miraculously disappears without any fanfare or notable signal. There’s no low hum emanating from the ground or sound of water trickling in the distance. There are just nice, clean streets and sidewalks.
The goal of the snow-melt was to keep Holland’s downtown alive during the rise of the shopping mall. It worked.
Today, downtown Holland is lovely and very much alive. Just about every storefront is occupied. On a Wednesday morning in January, people were out about walking in and out of stores and restaurants. Singles, couples, moms with young kids and babies in strollers. My sister, who lives in Holland with her husband and baby, told me that downtown is basically the only place she can go for a walk with a stroller during the winter.
Walking around downtown, it’s clear to me that the snow-melt worked to benefit downtown commerce, the community, and people’s health. I like to walk a lot, but one the toughest things about winter is the fact that it’s not easy to keep up walking in the same way as it is in summer. One of the reasons people feel depressed and like gloomy shut-ins during the darkest months of the year is the fact that they are stuck inside alone and docile.
The snow-melt system doesn’t change the temperature of the air. You still need a hat and gloves, but it does change the terrain, and it does make walking much more pleasant. It makes getting out easier and more likely.
It also makes walking safer. I saw some old folks walking around downtown in the morning. A couple with walkers, a couple without. They were moving very slow, but they were out walking in the middle of January, and that’s a scene I never see in Petoskey. The sidewalks are too slippery with snow and ice Up North. It’s too dangerous for old people to walk around downtown there. Falling when you are 80 might mean the hospital, or even death. The heated streets and sidewalks in Holland solve this problem.
The winter is a tragically anti-social time for many. The heated sidewalks are an ingenious way to adapt to a northern climate, a pro-social invention, and a decided good for a community.
The heated streets and sidewalks exist because people built them. Because there was a problem and Edgar Prince solved it. Because Holland, as a city, decided to take control of its destiny. That’s not an exaggeration or hyperbole. There are people and places that seize their future, and there are people and places that let the future happen to them.
The difference between thriving and not is which path a people or a place chooses. It’s true for countries and empires, it’s true for towns and villages in West Michigan, and it’s true for every single one of us as well.
The future is ours to build.
O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X @owroot.
